E3 2011: NGP Officially Titled PlayStation Vita

Announced today at E3 at the Sony Press Conference, the NGP is officially going to be called PlayStation Vita. I guess the rumours were true after all.

Vita is ‘life’ in Italian which would make sense given the new features NGP will be sporting from social connectivity to cloud gaming.

According to Gizmodo, AT&T will be the exclusive carriers of the 3G model in the United States.

I doubt we’ll see any kind of exclusive service provider for the PlayStation Vita here in Australia given other high profile portable devices of the fruit variety didn’t have exclusive providers here either.

No pricing details have been revealed yet. A non-3G model with just Wi-Fi capability will also be available at a lower price point.

[UPDATE]: Pricing for the PlayStation Vita has been revealed. The 3G/Wi-Fi model will set you back $299 USD while the Wi-Fi only model is priced at a more affordable $249 USD. How that translates to other regions and pricing, only time will tell.

According to Siliconera, these should be the pricing for Europe and Japan:

Wi-Fi Model:

Japan: 24,980 yen

Europe: 249 Euro

3G Model:

Japan: 29,980 yen

Europe: 299 Euro

PlayStation Vita’s social connectivity tool will be called ‘Near’ that essentially works the same way as StreetPass allowing PSVita owners the ability to communicate wireless with others in close proximity.

Tentatively scheduled for a release at the end of 2011, here’s hoping the new handheld platform can make it to the market before the year is up. Fingers crossed.

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